Assistant Manager - Application Transformation, ICS Acquisition (15 Month Secondment/Contract)

How will you make an impact in this role?

The Application Transformation team is responsible for transforming the acquisition and onboarding journey to make it faster, simpler and more effective for our customers, while ensuring we continue to meet our regulatory and risk obligations.

As Assistant Manager, Application Transformation, you will help deliver strategic initiatives across Australia and New Zealand that improve how Card applications are verified, decisioned and onboarded.

A key focus of the role will be transforming income verification and application decisioning, including greater use of automation, data and digital verification capabilities to reduce manual processing and unnecessary application pends and enable faster customer outcomes.

You will partner across Product, Technology, Credit, Risk, Compliance, Operations, Analytics and external providers to understand complex processes and rules, identify transformation opportunities, develop requirements, test solutions and take new capabilities through to implementation.

What Success Looks Like

• Transformation initiatives materially simplify the application and onboarding journey.
• More applications can be verified and decisioned without unnecessary manual intervention.
• Application pends and time to decision are reduced while appropriate risk and compliance requirements are maintained.
• New data, automation and verification capabilities are successfully moved from concept through to implementation.
• Business requirements are clearly defined and translated into effective technology and operational solutions.
• Benefits are measurable and supported by robust reporting.
• Cross-functional stakeholders are aligned and complex initiatives continue to move forward.
   

Why Join Us?

This 12-month secondment offers the opportunity to build experience across application transformation, digital verification, decisioning and cross-functional change delivery. You will work on initiatives that directly influence how prospective Card Members experience American Express and gain exposure to a broad network across Marketing, Product, Technology, Analytics, Credit, Risk, Compliance and Operations.

Key Responsibilities

Application and Onboarding Transformation

• Deliver initiatives that transform the application, verification and onboarding journey across Australia and New Zealand.
• Identify opportunities to simplify and automate application processes, reduce manual intervention and improve customer outcomes.
• Understand current-state application and onboarding processes and translate pain points into future-state requirements.
• Partner with Technology, Operations and third-party providers to design and implement new capabilities.
• Support transformation across the end-to-end journey, from application submission through verification, pending and decisioning.
• Ensure new processes and capabilities appropriately incorporate business, operational, risk and compliance requirements.

Income Verification and Decisioning Transformation

• Help drive the strategy and roadmap for transforming income verification and reducing unnecessary application pends.
• Support the implementation and evolution of automated income-verification capabilities, including third-party and bank-based data sources.
• Translate complex verification requirements into clear business rules and technology requirements.
• Identify opportunities to increase automated and instant decisioning and reduce reliance on manual review.
• Support the delivery and ongoing evolution of OCR and digital document-verification capabilities.
• Analyse verification outcomes, exceptions and application data to identify opportunities for further transformation.

Project and Change Delivery

• Lead transformation initiatives from opportunity identification and business-case development through requirements, approval, testing, launch and post-implementation review.
• Develop clear business requirements and work with Technology teams to translate them into deliverable solutions.
• Coordinate testing and implementation readiness across business, technology and operational teams.
• Navigate appropriate governance, risk and approval processes for new capabilities and process changes.
• Manage project milestones, risks, dependencies and actions, escalating where required.
• Track delivered benefits and use post-launch performance to identify further opportunities.

Data, Insights and Business Cases

• Use application, pend, cancellation, decisioning and operational data to identify transformation opportunities and prioritise investment.
• Develop business cases that articulate expected customer, operational and acquisition benefits.
• Monitor the performance of implemented capabilities and identify opportunities for further improvement.
• Partner with Analytics teams to ensure reporting, definitions and measures provide reliable information for business decisions.
• Translate complex analysis into clear recommendations for senior stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build strong relationships across Technology, Product, Risk, Compliance, Credit, Operations, Analytics and Marketing.
• Work with subject-matter experts to understand complex regulatory, policy and operational requirements and translate these into practical customer and technology solutions.
• Partner with external providers where required to develop, test and implement new capabilities.
• Facilitate working sessions and bring together stakeholders to resolve complex cross-functional issues.
• Communicate transformation priorities, recommendations, risks and outcomes clearly to senior stakeholders.

Minimum Qualifications

• Strong project-management skills and demonstrated ability to deliver complex, cross-functional initiatives.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability, with confidence using data to identify issues and develop recommendations.
• Ability to understand complex business processes and translate them into clear requirements and solutions.
• Excellent stakeholder-management skills and the ability to work effectively across Technology, Risk, Compliance, Operations and business teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to simplify complex issues for different audiences.
• Highly organised, with strong attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Comfortable working through ambiguity and proactively driving work forward.
• Customer-first mindset with a passion for improving how things work.
   

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in transformation, digital product, project delivery, business analysis, operations or a related field.
• Experience in financial services or another regulated environment.
• Exposure to digital applications, customer onboarding, credit decisioning or verification processes.
• Experience delivering automation or process-transformation initiatives.
• Familiarity with technology delivery, APIs and third-party data or verification solutions.
• Strong Excel and PowerPoint skills.